Additional Info

Summer Scouting: Game #12, SyracuseA look ahead, featuring Boston College's final opponent of the regular season

DB Manuel Asprilla and the Eagles host the Orange on Saturday, Nov. 29.

June 5, 2014

For each of the next 12 weeks leading up to the season opener against Massachusetts at Gillette Stadium on Aug. 30, www.bceagles.com is previewing its 2014 opponents. Beginning with the final regular-season game against Syracuse on the Saturday after Thanksgiving (Nov. 29) and working in reverse chronological order, below, and coming on Thursdays of each week, is a sampling of some news and notes from a series.

BC and Syracuse met on an annual basis for 42 seasons from 1961 to 2004, first as “Eastern Independents,” then as Big East Football opponents when the conference was formed in 1991.

Boston College and Syracuse met for the first time as Atlantic Coast Conference opponents last fall at the Carrier Dome in a 29-18 Orange victory.

Syracuse will be making a return visit to Alumni Stadium this November for the first time since 2004 when the 18th-ranked Eagles (8-2) fell to the Orange, 43-17, in the last regular-season game with an outright Big East championship and BCS Fiesta Bowl berth on the line.

Former Boston College running back Andre Williams (2010-13) and former Syracuse running back Floyd Little (1964-66) were each honored by the Doak Walker Committee at its annual award presentation banquet in Dallas, Texas, this past February. Williams, a 2000-yard rusher last fall, was the 2013 recipient of the award that recognizes the nation’s premier running back, while Little, a three-time All-American for the Orange who is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and Pro Football Hall of Fame, earned the 2013 Doak Walker Legends Award.

CURRENT CONNECTIONS

Boston College head coach Steve Addazio served as an assistant football coach at Syracuse for four years in the 1990s. A tight ends and assistant offensive line coach during the 1995 and 1996 seasons, he served as offensive line coach for the Orange in 1997-97.

Reggie Terry, Boston College assistant athletics director for football operations and player personnel, played linebacker for Syracuse from 1989-93 and spent 14 seasons with the Syracuse Athletics Department (1993-2007). A part of the school’s bowl game victories in 1989 (Peach), 1990 (Aloha), 1992 (Hall of Fame) and 1993 (Fiesta), Terry served as associate athletics director for football operations for the Orange from 2000-07.

1964: BC scored a 21-14 victory at Alumni Stadium over the nationally-ranked Orange on a last-second 55-yard pass from Larry Marzetti to Bill Cronin. Marzetti had ignored BC head coach Jim Miller’s instruction to take a knee at the end of the game and settle for a tie. (Within two weeks, Miller relegated Marzetti to the defensive backfield for his insubordination.) Syracuse, which went on to play in the Orange Bowl that year, featured future NFL stars Floyd Little and Jim Nance in the backfield and John Mackey at tight end. A freshman running back on the SU team was Tom Coughlin – later to become head coach at Boston College and the NFL’s New York Giants.

1982: Sophomore Doug Flutie lead the Eagles to a 20-13 victory, hitting tight end Scott Nizolek with a late touchdown pass and earning the Eagles a bid to the 1982 Tangerine Bowl in Orlando against Auburn. It was BC’s first bowl game in 39 years.

1984: BC defeated Syracuse, 24-16, before 61,000 fans at Foxboro Stadium; the 13th-ranked Eagles accepted an invitation to play in Cotton Bowl against Houston on New Year’s Day.